Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Spring;19(1):http://www.himss.org/ResourceLibrary/GenResourceDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=39758.
Epub 2015 Feb 2.

Developing Interventions for Overweight and Obese Children using Electronic Health Records Data

Affiliations

Developing Interventions for Overweight and Obese Children using Electronic Health Records Data

Jill Cochran et al. Online J Nurs Inform. 2015 Spring.

Abstract

Childhood obesity and the resulting co-morbid conditions have become a massive burden for primary caregivers in West Virginia and across the United States. Building culturally sensitive clinical interventions to meet population health needs presents a multi-factorial challenge. Historically it has been is difficult to accurately assess the demographic characteristics of clinic populations. Fortunately, the use of electronic health records (EHR) has created a major shift in clinical documentation and ability to routinely collect essential demographic and clinical data. While data for Meaningful Use under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is increasingly used to evaluate clinical care and outcomes, use of EHR data outside of the Meaningful Use umbrella has not received sufficient attention. This study explores use of EHR data beyond Meaningful Use to obtain demographic characteristics of an obese and overweight pediatric population in a rural primary care center for the purpose of informing appropriate, locally relevant intervention strategies. We find that the breadth and depth of information recorded on each patient can collectively provide valuable information to describe and evaluate the clinic population, identify priority areas to address, and measure change over time. Application of EHR data to understand the demographic characteristics of this particular patient population highlights the ability to identify target patient populations, uncover critical patient-level and population-level outcomes, inform intervention development and implementation, and add value to efforts in quality improvement systems transformation. Use of EHR data outside of the Meaningful Use umbrella needs increased attention in primary care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Appalachian Regional Commission. Maps. Retrieved from http://www.arc.gov/maps.
    1. Baus A, Hendryx M, Pollard C. Perspectives in Health Information Management. Spring; 2012. Identifying patients with hypertension: a case for auditing electronic health record data; pp. 1–15. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baus A, Wood G, Pollard C, Summerfield B, White E. Registry-based diabetes risk detection schema for the systematic identification of patients at risk for diabetes in West Virginia primary care centers. Perspectives in Health Information Management. 2013 Fall;:1–10. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity and overweight for professionals: childhood obesity facts. 2014 Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html.
    1. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. 2014 definition stage 1 of meaningful use. 2014 Retrieved from http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EHRIncentiveProg.... - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources